Fall 2020 PCA Magazine

40 PCA The Magazine | AUTUMN 2020 PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG just moved to Deadwood and attended the nearby annual SturgisMotorcycle Rally, when she realized there wasn’t a cigar store serving the nearly 500,000 bikers flooding the streets and patronizing the eating and drinking establishments during the 10-day event. Recognizing an opportunity, she opened Deadwood Tobacco Company, which she ran until 2019, when the business was purchased byWilliamRectenwald, who had been the area sales representative for Ashton Cigars since 2007. Boyd had over the years developed a specialty cigar, a pipe-tobacco-flavored, 5 x 46 corona with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, which she named Sweet Jane. It became the basis for Deadwood Tobacco’s house brand, image and marketing strategy. Rectenwald recognized the store’s successful usage of the Sweet Jane branding, the even greater potential it had, and A B R A N D A P A R T understood that selling the store’s brand was the way to build the business. “Vaughn focused on the Sweet Jane product itself. She did shot glasses, tee shirts, ashtrays, lighters, everything you could imagine she logoed, because she owned the trademark,” says Rectenwald. The cigar line has since expanded to include Fat Bottom Betty, a 6 x 50 Toro; Crazy Alice, a 4½x 46 pig-tailed pyramid; and recently Leather Rose, a 5 x 54 Belicoso. All the vitolas, including the newer shape extensions for Sweet Jane and Fat BottomBetty, share the same wrapper and blend. The latest addition is the Baby Jane Tin, a 10-count 4 x 32 cigarillo. The storyline is that Jane, Alice and Betty were Old West “ladies of the night” who populated the town’s famous brothels. Leather Rose was the proudmama of the three working girls. They are all fictional creations of Deadwood Tobacco Company, and they support and exemplify the store’s image as a livingWildWest brand. Together, they form the Deadwood Tobacco Company cigar line, which is manufactured and distributed nationally by DrewEstate. Rectenwald proudly emphasizes the store’s unique addition to the town of Deadwood’s colorful image: “We’re partnered with Shiner Beer, we have six drafts, a multitude of wine, we have 70- plus distinct bottles of beer. We’ve got live blues, and we’re the only spot in Deadwood, and one of only three in the whole state, where you can smoke indoors. With Deadwood being a gambling townwith a rich history of vices, we are an important entity to the town, in that we offer the community an indoor smoking lounge, which they have embraced.” In talking about the huge tourist draw the region offers, the scenic BlackHills, Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, 15 small-batch breweries, Deadwood’s 18 events each year, all in addition to the Sturgis Rally, Rectenwald points out that “it offers a beautiful platform for Deadwood Tobacco tomarket its own identity, a place to come in, nomatter what your background was, blue collar or white collar, where we developed an THE HISTORY AND LOCALE OF DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA, “OFFERS A BEAUTIFUL PLATFORM FOR DEADWOOD TOBACCO TO MARKET ITS OWN IDENTITY ....”